Washington Post Sunday editorial: Obama admin. redefining human rights

[Bluebear]

THE OBAMA administration's commitment to the traditional American cause of promoting democracy and human rights has been widely questioned, and not without reason. So some rights advocates were pleased by an address that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered at Georgetown University, in which she laid out "the Obama administration's human rights agenda for the 21st century." We're not so happy.

Ms. Clinton said that the administration, "like others before us, will promote, support and defend democracy." She pledged that it would publicly denounce abuses by other governments and support dissidents and civil society groups. While saying that "principled pragmatism" would govern human rights discussions with "key countries like China and Russia," Ms. Clinton went on to spell out specific U.S. concerns with those nations, including Beijing's persecution of peaceful reformers and the murders of journalists in Russia....

Ms. Clinton said that in adding "human development" to human rights and democracy, "we have to tackle all three simultaneously." But there are two dangers in her approach. One is that non-democratic regimes will seize on the economic aspect of her policy as an substitute for political reform -- as dictators have been doing for decades. Another is that the Obama administration will itself, in working with friendly but unfree countries, choose the easy route of focusing on development, while downplaying democracy.

Judging from Ms. Clinton's own rhetoric, that is the approach the State Department is headed toward in the Arab Middle East. In a major speech last month in Morocco, she said that U.S. engagement with Islamic countries would henceforth focus on education, science and technology, and "entrepreneurship" -- all foundations of "development." She made no mention of democracy. If the Obama administration believes that liberty is urgently needed in the homelands of al-Qaeda, Ms. Clinton still has offered no sign of it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/26/AR2009122601427.html

[niyad]

1. speaking of human rights--what about a thread further down wherein THIS administration

is refusing to obey a court order about benefits for a married lesbian couple?

[sandnsea]

2. Neo-cons support democracy and liberation

over social and economic development.

[WCGreen]

5. Almost there....

But it is unfettered trade they worship most....

[sandnsea]

7. I should have said Neocon propaganda

I think they support free trade and dictatorships in reality. I was just referring to the way the article portrayed US backing of human rights based on freedom and democracy.

[ima_sinnic]

3. huh. I guess Hillary didn't hear about this case:

Dred Scott Redux: Obama and the Supremes Stand Up for Slavery
Chris Floyd
Dec. 18, 2009

. . . After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president's fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a "suspected enemy combatant" by the president or his designated minions is no longer a "person." They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever -- save whatever modicum of process the government arbitrarily deigns to grant them from time to time, with its ever-shifting tribunals and show trials. . . .

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1887-dred-scott-redux-obama-and-the-supremes-stand-up-for-slavery.html

absolutely sickening--and they have the gall to blather on about "democracy" and a "human rights agenda."

[ProSense]

4. Hillary would have been an excellent president. n/t

[Solly Mack]

6. The annual State Department's report on human rights comes out in about 8-10 weeks

Just a reminder.